


As vast as the ocean, as far as the stars.

by electricteatime



Category: Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency (TV 2016)
Genre: Dirk Gently's relationship to the Universe, Freeform, Gen, Mentions of Drowning, Other, a lot of metaphors, more poetic bullshit, vague passing mentions of Todd and Farah if you catch them
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-25
Updated: 2018-08-25
Packaged: 2019-07-02 03:39:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 801
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15788187
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/electricteatime/pseuds/electricteatime
Summary: The only thing he knows for certain, is that it will always be waiting.Behind closed eyes, hidden in doorways. In quiet moments and loud spaces. In losses and victories. In tears and laughter. Two steps behind or three steps ahead.It waits for him.





	As vast as the ocean, as far as the stars.

**Author's Note:**

> Some of you wanted me to post more of my poeticy-pretentiousy-experimental bullshit type stuff, and I said I would share some with you so here it is.
> 
> This is a little different from the others of these I've posted as it's not brotzly, but just about Dirk and the Universe. It's an idea I've been coming back to a lot lately and I wanted to get something down, but this is probably more experimental than the others and I'm still not sure how I feel about it but here it is anyway. 
> 
> It's not been beta'd so feel free to pick me up on errors and otherwise I hope you enjoy!

The only thing he knows for certain, is that it will always be waiting. 

 

Behind closed eyes, hidden in doorways. In quiet moments and loud spaces. In losses and victories. In tears and laughter. Two steps behind or three steps ahead. 

 

It waits for him. 

 

To be brave. To be scared. To be vulnerable. To be happy. To be lonely. To be  _ in love _ . 

 

It waits. 

 

And then it takes. 

 

And takes. 

 

And takes. 

 

Encouraging him away with gentle words or dragged by the wrist like a misbehaving child, it settles in his stomach and creeps up and out until it takes him over and he has no choice but to go. To run. To keep on going wherever it takes him, no matter the cause, no matter the  _ cost _ , no matter what he leaves behind. 

 

He knows, he  _ knows _ what happens when he stays.

 

But he is  _ tired _ of being dragged out to sea.  

 

It starts as a stream, and runs to a river, and before he knows it he’s nothing more than a tiny speck on a wide open ocean that is too big and too old to care anything for him. There is life below the surface, but only death if he goes under. He’s been told that heavens lie above, but the sky is so dark he can’t tell where it starts, even if he believed enough to reach for it. 

 

The tides are gentle, but they never last, every promise of being brought closer to shore only pulls him further out in the end, and he would fight it but he doesn’t know how. So he floats, and he drifts, and he tries to pretend it gives him control, that it’s not so bad to live like this, until the quiet water turns on him and suddenly he sinks below the waves that turn to storms above his head.

 

He gets caught in currents and wrecked on rocks, reaching out for handholds and footholds and finding nothing but open water. The lighthouses in the distance come closer, but never within reach and no matter how hard he tries he will tire before he gets there, a reminder that hope exists, just not for him. Not here. Not now. His fingers slip on anything he touches, and he starts to lose track of what it means to be anything other than this. Trapped living in an eternal moment of desperation that stretches on for miles without end. 

Though he fights as hard as he can against the nothingness around him, eventually the water floods down his throat. A thousand hands reach up from the depths to pull him under, rendering him helpless and hopeless and drowning. Not a single one trying to help.

 

He can’t breathe, but he can’t let go, so every time he breaks the surface he takes another breath. Just one. Just  _ enough _ . Until it’s not enough anymore. Until his body grows heavy and his mind along with it, sinking down down down and forced to trust he’ll make the surface again, or give up hope entirely. 

 

Anything it wants from him it can have. Taking and tearing and breaking him apart to find what’s useful and tossing the rest aside. It doesn’t ask, it doesn’t consider, it doesn’t  _ care. _ It just pulls him in every direction it can, spitting him onto shores whenever it wants only to sweep him back out when it decides it’s time. There’s no pattern or rhyme or reason, nothing but the will of something far bigger and stronger and  _ beyond _ him entirely. No mercy to appeal to, or benevolence to gift. He can kick and scream and cry and beg and plead, but it has no ears to hear him, nor the heart to care. 

 

Even when it’s still, when the storm stops and he can drift, staring at the darkness high above that mirrors the depths below, it leaves him lonely and lost and scared. No place to go and no way to get there, nothing to do but wait until it comes again to swallow him whole, hoping this time will be the last, whatever it is that means. 

 

(Hoping that this time, maybe, there will be somebody solid and strong and stubborn enough to save him from the water.)

 

All he knows for certain is that it will always be waiting. Carving him open and filling the space inside of him up and up and up, spilling over, flooding the room around him until it washes away anything he tries to cling to. Until there is nothing left but the endless cycle of his existence, and the only two things that keep him fighting for something more.

 

A loneliness inside, as vast as the ocean.

 

And a promise of hope, as far as the stars.

**Author's Note:**

> So there's that. I don't know if I like this one but it exists now. 
> 
> Please let me know if you liked this. Or hated it even! All comments are good comments and I'm particularly interested in hearing what you think about this type of stuff. Do you want more? Less? Can you tell I'm a poet at heart? Am I being too pretentious and you want me to stop? Hit the comments!
> 
> Thanks for reading!


End file.
